


Machine Gun Love

by Eltrkbarbarella



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cybersex, Denial, Dirty Talk, Falling In Love, Flirting, Fluff and Smut, Friends With Benefits, M/M, No Homo, Seduction, Skype, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 08:52:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9990776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eltrkbarbarella/pseuds/Eltrkbarbarella
Summary: "Baby, I'll hook you with dirty talk,Late night, all night bootycalls,Then I'm taking all your love."Jack never thought this thing he had with Mark would get so out of hand, but there's just something about Mark that keeps him coming back for more.This fanfic is based on the songMachine Gun Loveby Kesha.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!  
> This fanfic is based on Kesha’s [Machine Gun Love](https://m.letras.mus.br/kesha/machine-gun-love/) (click the link for lyrics and video)
> 
> This fic is 100% unashamed wish-fulfillment for me, and I can’t believe people are actually willing to click through it.
> 
> Most of you don’t know that I really fucking love Kesha. And for a while now I’ve wanted to make something based on one of her songs. Well, friends, this is the day.
> 
> Fun fact: I’ve actually seen her perform this on a concert here in São Paulo back in 2015, and I have this same song recorded on my phone, and I’ll treasure it forever.
> 
>  
> 
> Special thanks to [Headphones_and_Notebooks](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Headphones_and_Notebooks/pseuds/Headphones_and_Notebooks) for motivating me, and helping me figure out plot points, and for being an enabler in my “Short-fic-turned-10k+” habit.

Sometimes in life you can pinpoint exactly when shit gets out of hand. For Jack that moment is obvious about five minutes after it passes.  
  
He’s still reeling from his sudden subscriber boom going from 300 something thousand subscribers to over a million in just a few months felt absolutely unreal. He still feels like that weird little Irish nobody screaming himself hoarse inside a wooden cabin. Jack sits in front of his computer rushing to catch up with the newest comments on his videos, recalling those days not too long ago when he could reply to every single one effortlessly. He ends up getting so involved in his replying he doesn’t even notice the time passing, and before he knows he’s been staring at his screen for hours: a spontaneous all-nighter.  
  
There isn’t a magical moment where realization comes and he can clearly say: “I’ve made it. I’ve accomplished what I wanted with this YouTube thing.” Jack doesn’t think there’s _ever_ gonna be a moment like that. Knowing himself: he’s always going to want to keep moving forwards, keep getting better and better, for ever trying to be as great as he possibly can, and then trying _harder_.   
  
But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel validated in special occasions.  
  
The Pewdiepie shoutout, the subscriber boost, the overwhelming love from the community, it all resonates within Jack and brings up this uncontrollable urge to be _better_. Could he have seen himself getting this far back when he posted his first videos? There was always hope, he won’t deny that, but it was never his end-goal. Jack would be happy just making a single person a little happier each day with his videos, just like all those people who he admired were doing at the time.   
  
In the corner of Jack’s tired eyes he sees a little notice pop up: Markiplier is online on Skype. And what a fucking turn of events that is: he can honestly say that Markiplier --one of his motivations to actually start recording Let’s Plays-- is one of his friends.  
  
Jack opens up Skype on reflex, typing out a quick hello to Mark just out of being so used to doing it. Right after he hits send Jack’s brain catches up with the situation. It is currently ass O’clock in the morning in Ireland, Jack fumbles a bit with the numbers on his mind and concludes that it must be about Late as Fuck O’clock in America too. He considers leaving the poor guy alone and maybe catching some sleep himself, but before he can close the window his Skype chimes louder than he expected.  
  
“Hey,” Comes Mark’s deep raspy voice from the voice call, “Didn’t think you’d be up at this hour, I guess it’s true that Leprechauns don’t need to sleep.”  
  
“Hey yerself. I’ll never share the secrets of my kind with you, you dirty American spy. The hell are you doing up anyway?”  
  
Mark’s laughter sounds strangely breathy this late at night (or is it this early in the morning?) “You know… just doing some stuff, and uh… talking to you, I guess.”  
  
“What kind of stuff? Did you forget to edit the videos for tomorrow?”  
  
Another breathy chuckle, “No, that’s not it, just, some stuff.”  
  
“Why are you dodging the question? Are you ashamed of leaving your videos to the last minute? Because I can tell you right now: we’ve all done it before, Mark.”  
  
“I’m not doing anything YouTube related, I can tell you that much.”  
  
“Hmmm, I still think you’re hidin’ something. Are you watching porn, is that it?” Jack teases, barely suppressing a giggle.  
  
Jack’s sleep deprived brain takes a while to notice the sudden awkward silence, but when it does Jack is stunned with the implication.  
  
“Hang on, you can’t be serious! You’re actually watching porn right now?”  
  
“So what if I am, Jack?” Mark answers a little defensively.  
  
Mark has to be fucking with him, he just has to. He is just waiting for Jack to sound awkward about it and then he’ll laugh at his expense, Jack just knows it. But Jack isn’t about to just fold and fall for it, no sir.  
  
“Well, if you really are watching porn right now, you should totally tell me more about it, I’m pretty curious about your preferences.” Jack teases.  
  
There is a brief pause where all Jack can hear is Mark’s soft breathing, almost like Mark is considering whether or not to continue with the joke.   
  
When Mark finally answers his voice sounds even raspier and deeper than before. “I woke up really hard in the middle of the night, you know, for no reason at all, and it’s been so long Jack,” Mark lets out a soft sigh “So long since I really took my time and made it feel good…” Mark’s sentence comes out sounding like a moan. It resonates strangely inside of Jack, and for a moment he’s unsure whether he wants to rip out his headphones or listen attentively for Mark’s soft sounds.  
  
“Y-yeah?” Says Jack. He’s not sure what to do with his hands, so he grabs at the edge of his desk, like he was steeling himself for the next part of Mark’s narration.  
  
Mark groans a little before continuing “So I pulled up my favorite videos, and I was just getting started on it, but then...” Mark gasps softly, “Then you said hello. But, Jack, I’m _so hard_.“ Jack bites back a moan at that, his crotch tingling in sympathy. “Even now I just can’t stop touching myself.”  
  
“Jesus fucking christ.” Is all that Jack manages to gasp out. His heart is speeding and his mouth feels dry no matter how many times he tries to swallow.  
  
“D’you wanna see it?”  
  
“Uhhhm...” What the _hell_ kind of question is that?  
  
Jack doesn’t even get enough time to process that question before Skype tells him that Mark is sending him a video-call. Jack stares at his screen in disbelief neither accepting nor rejecting the call.  
  
“C’mon, Jack, let me show you, accept the call.”   
  
Mark’s voice sounds so good, so commanding and deep, and it is making Jack’s sleep-deprived brain very very confused.  
  
“Jack-” Mark says in a moan, and Jack belatedly realizes just how worked up he’s getting, he’s almost all the way hard just from listening to Mark’s voice. And in that moment Jack knows that watching Mark would be too much.  
  
“I- I can’t, Mark, I just can’t.” Jack’s voice sounds so whiny and pitiful. He can feel himself blush, but that doesn’t make him any less aroused. With shaky hands he clicks deny on Mark’s video request.  
  
“That’s ok, Jack.” Mark says gently, “I’ll just tell you _everything_. Would you like that? Do you want me to tell you everything I’m doing right now? Everything I’m thinking of?” Mark’s voice sounds like a caress and an invitation, and Jack just can’t hold himself back any longer.  
  
“Oh god, yes.” Jack moans in agreement, closing his eyes and running his hands lightly across his inseam.  
  
The next minutes pass in a hazy blur of pleasure. It feels like it lasts forever, but also like it’s over way too fast. Jack is left gasping for air, slumped back on his chair trying to decide whether he should wipe his soiled hands in his clothes or drip everywhere, too boneless with bliss to actually move his ass far enough to grab some tissues. He can hear Mark’s breathing, slowly going back to normal just a little off sync with his own.  
  
“So...” Jack says, “Did that count as ‘making it feel good’?”  
  
Jack is delighted to find that Mark’s laughter is even breathier and deeper in his afterglow. “Yeah, Jack, that was really good.” He sounds lazy and content, which in turn makes Jack feel lazy and content as well.  
  
They bide each other goodbye, comfortably languid and finally sleepy. And it isn’t until Jack is comfortably tucked in his own bed just about to fall asleep and hopefully wake up before noon, that the full implication of what he and Mark just finished doing hits him over the head like a falling brick.  
  
What the _fuck_ did he just do?

 

 

 

 

  
Jack honestly tries not to freak out too badly. Not that it works, but still, he makes an attempt. He finally rolls himself out of bed after spending the night failing to sleep for more than 2 hours at a time before startling back awake in his anxiety. He tries the mental equivalent of stuffing your fingers in your ears and singing to ignore someone’s words by loudly thinking about the lyrics to whatever song comes to mind until he is done with his morning routine and sits down to record the videos for the following day. After all: he can’t have the entire commentary be Michael Jackson’s Thriller.   
  
He gets about halfway through the recording of another Happy Wheels episode, motor-mouthing his way through it like a boss, just so he doesn’t need to think about anything. But then there’s this small lull. While he’s browsing the JSE levels for something good that he hasn’t played yet he finds himself being quiet again, he’ll definitely edit this out later but right then his mind wanders without his permission.  
  
Mark hasn’t shown up on Skype yet. And it’s not like Jack is checking or anything! He just didn’t see Mark’s name on the list of online friends when he first sat down to record today. _Maybe he’ll never speak to me again,_ Jack’s brain helpfully added, instating Stage-1 of _Freaking The Fuck Out_.  
  
Jack has no clue how he finishes recording that Happy Wheels video with all his traitorous upsetting thoughts trying to ruin his day.  
  
Jack wonders if this is what a sexuality crisis feels like, but drops that idea as soon as it pops up in his mind. He’s not gay. He’s not bi. He’s not anything at all attracted to dudes. It’s just stupid Mark, and his stupid sleepy voice, and his stupid groans, and his stupid laugh. Jack isn’t attracted to him at all! _No_ , he figures, _it was just a sympathy boner_. Mark was hard, and talking about being hard and Jack just… empathized with his situation in his sleep-deprivation, that’s all. It is Mark’s fault that their friendship is now ruined.  
  
_Oh my god_ , their friendship is _ruined_.  
  
How can they walk away from something like that? How can two guys platonically get off together and still be friends later?  
  
_It’s just gonna be a crazy story that we’re gonna laugh about and completely ignore in a few years_ , he tries reasoning with himself. Maybe he just needs to give Mark some distance, you know, let this slip by them for a bit. It’s not like he’s ignoring Mark, or running away from the inevitable argument they’ll certainly have if they confront this, just giving him some space to process it all.  
  
That resolution last long enough for Jack to finish recording a really stupid and fast quirky game, and then he remembers the scheduled Prop Hunt video he’s supposed to record with Bob, Mark, and Wade in the next day. Then it’s right back to Freaking The Fuck Out.  
  
It’s gonna be the worst Prop Hunt video _ever_ , no, the worst _collab_ ever. How are they supposed to hold a normal conversation after what happened? They’ll ruin Bob’s and Wade’s videos all because of Mark’s stupid boner, and stupid voice. Oh god, what if Mark decided to call him out in front of the guys? Sure he could edit it out of the video, but he couldn’t change Bob’s and Wade’s memories. He is doomed, no one’s ever going to collab with him again.

 

 

 

 

  
Turns out all of the worrying is for nothing. Jack is tense when he answers the skype call; he’s worried while they load up the game; he’s concerned once they start their recording, and he’s downright terrified through the first couple of rounds, missing the most obvious props and getting killed in under a minute.  
  
But then nothing happens.  
  
Mark is not calling him out, or being rude (well, being more rude than usual.) There’s no arguments, or awkward silences, or anything at all that obviously changed. For a wild moment Jack wonders if he’d hallucinated the whole thing.  
  
It’s a decent episode. He has loads of fun with the guys and there are some great moments here and there with their banter and impossible prop escapes. Once they all have a decent amount of footage for their channels they all say their goodbyes and promise to do this again sometime soon, maybe a GMod next time?  
  
The thing is: Jack is concerned. Mark pretending that nothing happened is good in the sense that he doesn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of their friendship ending, but it leaves so many unanswered questions. To be honest, Jack is still kind of pissed off at Mark. What he did was really weird and crossed all kinds of boundaries, and all that freaking out Mark’s actions caused feels like too much to simply be brushed aside and never mentioned again. Besides that, he’d hate for Mark to assume something that isn’t there. Jack had to at last explain to him that he isn’t attracted to Mark, and that the whole thing was nothing more than a fluke that they shouldn’t dwell on. So he waits until Wade and Bob disconnect from the Skype call, just so he can have some privacy to talk things out with Mark.  
  
“Uhm, Mark…” He starts.  
  
“Hey Jack, do you have anything else you need to do right now?” Mark asks casually.  
  
“Ah, no, not really. Why?” And really, Jack should have noticed it right then.  
  
“Wanna help me make it feel good again?” Mark’s voice goes all smooth and deep. Even without the scratchiness of sleep clinging to it it still sent a shiver down Jack’s spine.

 

 

 

 

  
Jack doesn’t exactly know how Mark managed to rope him into that mess again, but God, did it feel nice.  
  
He can’t blame it on sleepy brains anymore, but maybe it was just the consequence of burning himself out with the stress of Freaking The Fuck Out for so long. He was exhausted, and stressed, and orgasms are a surefire way to relax, right? I doesn’t have to mean anything.  
  
Jack’s too blissed out to carry a conversation after they’re done, so once again Mark disconnects before he can call him out on his weird behavior.

 

 

 

 

  
And that should have been it, really. A couple of fun times with Mark’s dirty talking and that would be okay, acceptable, just a minor fluke of a coincidence that Mark was horny while Jack was a little too tired to argue with logic. The only problem being that it _keeps happening_.  
  
There’s something about Mark that is so ridiculously charming and convincing, Jack can never deny him anything. He tries bringing up the fact that he isn’t actually attracted to men during one of their calls, only to have Mark laugh at his face and tell him to stop being ridiculous. It pisses him off, but he still makes a point out of telling Mark very firmly that this _thing_ they do from time to time means absolutely nothing, just some casual thing that they do, just friends helping out one another cause it’s fun and it feels good.  
  
But it just keeps escalating. In no time at all Mark convinces Jack to watch him through a video call. Nothing much, just his face, just some visual stimulation to help with the process. And then Jack starts sending him videos, and then Mark ends up shirtless in one of their video calls, and by the end of it he can honestly say he knows exactly what Markiplier’s dick looks like.  
  
And that’s fine, right? It doesn’t have to be weird. He likes the visuals cause they have the same parts, he just, sort of… pictures himself as Mark? Sympathy boners all over again. Besides, all Mark does is talk about what he’s doing to himself, about what is running through his mind. Yeah, it’s dirty, but it’s more like comparing techniques than anything else, really.  
  
“C’mon, Jack, you gotta do it!”  
  
“Mark, I don’t know, I mean, I want to, but…”  
  
“Conventions are so much fun, you gotta come for PAX East.”  
  
“You’ll probably end up convincing me, you always do.” Jack chuckles. Mark is really insisting that he should take this trip, even if it is a couple of months away. It would be Jack’s first American convention, and his first time meeting his online friends IRL.  
  
Mark just smirks back at him. “Yeah, I do.”  
  
It’s been months since they’ve started that weird Skype thing of theirs, but now it’s just a “thing” they do from time to time. Jack is still baffled that they can joke about it and mention it freely like it’s no big deal anymore, just an adjacent part of their friendship.  
  
“It’s gonna be so cool. We’ll hang out in the convention, and you can hang around for the panels, and you’ll meet so many people. Like: I know Bob and Wade are going, and maybe Yamimash too, I think JonTron always goes anyway... We could all hang out and have fun…” Mark sounds like a little kid, all the excitement shining through in the tone of his voice, and for some reason that makes Jack feel all kinds of giddy.  
  
“Careful there, Mark, you’re starting to sound really excited to meet me.” Jack giggles, turning a bit pink.  
  
“But I am excited to meet you.” Mark says, “And I’m excited to play games with you in local multiplayer, and I’m excited to take you out to eat disgustingly caloric American food,” Jack can almost hear Mark’s smile.  
  
“Sounds like a good time, in my opinion.”  
  
“I’ll show you a good time, alright.” Mark chuckles, “Actually, yeah, I’ll show you a _good_ time.” Mark punctuates that word with intentions.   
  
Isn’t it weird that Jack can tell apart Mark’s mood just by the sound of his voice? He can just tell Mark is starting to get worked up, and he can’t help but push him a bit further, the playfulness is clearly catching on.  
  
“And what exactly does the Markiplier Good Time™ entail?” And yeah, it’s reckless and Jack can clearly see where this is going, but he’s interested to see what Mark is going to say, Jack’s pulse already skyrocketing in anticipation.  
  
“I’m gonna have you all for myself. I think we both know how well that’ll end up.” And with just that Jack can already feel himself heating up. Mark talked about _when_ , not _if_. There’s just something about that absolute confidence that never fails to get Jack in the mood.  
  
“Tell me.” Jack demands, and braces himself for yet another incredible experience.

 

 

 

 

  
Jack is not disapointed that Mark hasn’t kissed him yet. Disappointed is not the right word for it, he’s leaning more towards puzzled.   
  
It’s just that in his latest skype calls Mark’s been talking about touching him, kissing him, getting him off in all these different ways once they finally see each other in person. And now when they finally did meet up,  the most action he’s got was this really heartfelt and warm hug, which, don’t get him wrong, was awesome, but still, you can’t really stop him from wondering.  
  
Mark is not treating him any differently. He is sweet, and excitable, and teases Jack just as much as he does online. Jack is so relieved that their friendship survived the transition from online to IRL. Mark is surprisingly physically affectionate too: he rests his hand on Jack’s shoulders, tugs at Jack’s shirt to get his attention, ruffles his hair and pushes him around gently when he’s trying to tease Jack about something, that and all the spontaneous hugging… It’s nice. Jack doesn’t really have any local close friends, and he can admit he feels a little touch-starved from time to time, all this platonic affection is making Jack’s head all floaty and nice.  
  
He was expecting all those promises of kisses and touches to be nothing more than fantasies anyway. He isn’t disappointed. He gets to hang out with all these amazing people he can now call his friends, and even meet people from the Jacksepticeye community that came all the way to PAX just to see him and give him trinkets made especially for him. That’s incredible already.

 

 

 

 

  
Dinner with the guys is one of the best experiences in Jack’s life. Just a bunch of friends being silly and eating nice food, but still so much more than that. It is hard to contain all the joy and wonder inside, what with the being surrounded by all these people he admires and all, but Jack thinks he does a pretty good job of keeping all his fanboying to himself.  
  
It was a long and eventful day, and it shows in the tired shine on everyone’s eyes. There’s this energy just under Jack’s skin that has been there since he saw himself surrounded by the crowd of people in the convention. He can’t stop bouncing his knees up and down, and gesticulating excitedly when he talks, even though he knows he must be very annoying to everyone around him. He accidentally knocks his leg against Mark’s under the table for what has to be like the third time already, startling the American sitting across from him from his conversation with Yamimash. Jack is ready to apologize once again, but before he can for the words properly, Mark looks right at him with warm brown eyes and smiles, shaking his head. Jack swallows his words and tries to hide his blush behind his drink.  
  
Mark is a good friend, that is what the whole day proved. Even if this thing of theirs ends up going nowhere Jack is thankful he got to meet Mark. Just having his friendship is more than enough.

 

 

 

 

  
So maybe Jack was a little hasty in saying he isn’t attracted to Mark at all.  
  
They left dinner together, after all, for some crazy coincidence they had booked the same hotel. It was only the most logical thing to walk back together. Mark kept stealing glances and bumping their shoulders together all the way to the hotel lobby, and Jack appreciated the attention a lot. Jack thought nothing of it, just Mark being his clingy self, right until their elevator ride.  
  
Mark didn’t push any buttons, just leaned against the wall and casually looked Jack up and down appreciatively. Jack felt _wanted_. Mark’s gaze was a palpable heat running heavy through Jack’s body. He tried not to stare back, feeling a bit awkward about the whole thing, and before he knew it they were on his floor.  
  
Jack kept expecting Mark to stop following him, to just stand in front of one of the doors in the hallway and say his goodnight, hopefully kissing Jack for a bit… but it never happened. Mark followed just a step behind him right up until Jack was standing in front of his room’s door, key-card in hand.  
  
“Uhhmm…” Jack said a little awkwardly.  
  
“Aren’t you going to invite me inside?” And Mark’s smooth voice was so much better in real life, how could Jack resist.  
  
Now Jack’s resting back against his hotel bed’s fluffy pillows, already shirtless and breathing heavily, tangling his fingers in Mark’s soft hair while the man slowly kisses his way down Jack’s chest and tugs his zipper down.  
  
Jack can feel Mark muttering something against his skin, just a little too quietly for him to catch it. He tugs Mark back up by the hair and hooks his legs around the man’s hips, grinding up against him, relishing in Mark’s moan.  
  
“Couldn’t hear you down there. What did you say?” Jack holds Mark in place by his hair and forces Mark to look at him in the eyes.  
  
“I said: I’ve been wanting to do this to you all day.” Mark closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the rough tugs in his hair and Jack can’t help biting at his exposed neck.  
  
“Well, you’ve got me now. What are you gonna do about it?” Jack taunts him, tugging Mark back into another deliciously deep messy kiss.

 

 

 

 

  
It is no doubt, without a question, hands down the _best_ sex Jack’s ever had. It’s slippery, and sticky, and sweaty, and so undeniably good he aches inside.  
  
Jack never thought he'd know exactly what the pillow casings of the hotel feel like between his teeth, the unmistakable taste of Mark's cum, the rasp of Mark's stubble against the sensitive skin of the back of his neck as he mouths along the knob of Jack's spine, or what Mark's tan skin looks like covered in sweat and semen. But there he is, content but still so far from sated, drinking in the pleased shine in Mark’s eyes.  
  
He can already feel himself getting hard again. Mark is lightly running his hand’s down Jack’s thighs, dragging his nails against his skin from time to time just to see him jump in surprise. Mark slides his hands further down and grabs a handful of Jack’s inner thighs, fingers brushing lightly against where Jack needs them most. Mark moves closer, plastering himself against Jack’s side and mouthing along Jack’s jaw and up to his ear.  
  
“I want to fuck you again.” Mark whispers hotly in his ear, sending all kinds of shivers down Jack’s spine. “Do you want me to fuck you again?” Mark dips his fingers even lower. “You’re still wet down here. _Please_ , Jack, can I fuck you again?” He presses just the tip of his index finger _in_ , just a little, just a tease.  
  
“Yes!” Jack gasps with conviction, pushing Mark off him and rolling on top to straddle him. Mark keeps staring at him with this open and genuine expression, his hair is beyond messed up where it fans out on the pillow, his glasses long gone, tossed somewhere on the bed. He looks gorgeous.  
  
This time they take their time with it, the desperation from before melting away into slow satisfaction, and it’s still so incredibly good. Figures Mark can’t just be good at something, he needs to be the best.

 

 

 

 

  
Mark spends the whole night in his room. They end up getting just a few hours of sleep between them, and Jack can’t complain about it at all.  
  
At around 7 a.m. they finally roll out of bed. Mark looks like a total mess with his bed-hair and creases where his face was smushed against the pillows.  
  
“Meet you for breakfast with the guys in an hour? We were thinking of getting some pancakes.” Mark says as he gathers his clothes from the floor and tugs them on without looking at Jack. He sounds like he always does: warm and friendly; not at all like the man who can literally talk Jack into an orgasm. The final product is a very rumpled satisfied looking Mark, looking like the perfect definition of a guy doing the ‘walk of shame’ in the morning after.  
  
A proud thought of ‘ _I did that_ ’ crosses Jack’s mind, but he keeps silent where he’s still stood stark naked by the bed.  “Yeah, sure. Just gotta take a shower, I think.” He drags his eyes away from Mark before his brain decides to smack him with any more strange thoughts, only to land his gaze on the mess they’ve made of the bed sheets. Jack spots his own underwear tossed somewhere near the bedside table and picks it up. He gets this primal urge to hide it behind his back, nevermind the fact that Mark was the one to take it off for him in the first place.  
  
“I still can’t believe I get to have you for the whole weekend.” Mark breaks from his friendly mood and strides over to Jack, ignoring the bed Jack was unconsciously using as a barrier, and grabs Jack by the waist, tugging him in for a last kiss.  
  
Jack’s heart does a weird little flip in his chest for a second. Jack stands there, in awe of Mark’s ability to rile him up for quite a while after Mark breaks the kiss and looks at him all smug and pleased.  
  
Jack clears his throat a little before speaking. “Yeah, I’m super excited to finally hang out with all you guys.”   
  
For an instant Jack sees Mark looking at him with a frown of confusion, but it’s gone as soon as it arrives, and Mark is already heading to the door.  
  
“Here’s to hoping no one catches me sneaking back into my room looking like this.” He jokes, gesturing at his messy appearance. “See you later, Jack.”  
  
Jack stands there, buck ass naked and waving goodbye, ignoring the little voice inside his head that tells him he’d quite enjoy messing Mark up even more before he left for good.

 

 

 

 

  
It’s true what they say: Time flies when you’re having fun.  
  
The weekend is over before Jack even has enough time to process everything that happens. It’s overwhelming, and amazing, and so incredibly new. And then Mark looks at him in the eyes and comforts him simply by saying: “Give it a year, you’ll get used to this.” And that in itself is so huge. Jack never thought he’d ever get this far as a youtuber, and just the idea of one day being used to people coming over to greet him, people wanting to have his signature on things (Jack can’t even call it his autograph, it sounds too conceited,) is already overwhelming.  
  
He has no idea how he’s even able to function through the rest of the convention. Spending whole nights fooling around with Mark and then spending his days in the cloud of excitement and noise of PAX should by all means make him exhausted. but somehow it only makes Jack feel alive and energized, ready to take on the next new and amazing thing.  
  
The warmth of Mark’s body is still fresh in his mind even though the man himself is currently in the bathroom. Mark is probably cleaning himself up a bit, but Jack’s mental capacities have been reduced to a certain degree of slow and lazy that only a good night in bed can achieve, and therefore he lays in bed, neither caring nor being able to move.  
  
Mark walks out of the bathroom and stands by the door for a moment looking over at where Jack is still in the same position Mark left him in.  
  
The light from the bathroom is not the most flattering. Back-lit like that Mark’s long hair looks frizzy and unkempt. Jack can see Mark’s surgery scar, and the tan-lines of his skin. He sees the extra bit of weight Mark carries around his midsection, and that one spot, about an inch from his bellybutton, where Mark’s happy-trail is slightly sparser for some reason. Jack wants to trace all of those imperfections with his tongue.  
  
He tries looking at Mark in the eyes to convey his renewed want, but Mark is just standing there, eyes slightly unfocused, squinting just enough to be noticeable, and that’s when Jack becomes aware of the metal frames of Mark’s glasses poking him in the ribs. Jack finally drags his limbs into motion and fishes around the rumpled sheets for Mark’s glasses. He lethargically extends his left arm in Mark’s vague direction, offering him the frames. Mark squints a little harder, his sight focusing on Jack’s hand, and walks over to pick up his glasses.  
  
“Thanks, now I can admire you properly.” Mark grins down at him, sits near Jack’s hips and pokes him in the ribs where he knows it’ll make the Irishman jump.  
  
Jack feels a fondness wash over him at that grin. He’s just looking up at his good friend Mark, he can actually look up and see Mark without the hassle of a computer screen between them.  
  
“I’m so glad we’re still friends.” Jack muses out loud.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah… I thought the casual sex thing was going to totally ruin us when we first started. I’ve never actually done something like this before, but I’m glad we managed to keep our friendship separate from it.” Jack knows he’s probably over-sharing, but he feels all loose, and happy. He can’t really help it.  
  
“Oh… So, you wanna be just friends and… keep doing the casual sex stuff?” Mark sounds a bit awkward. Jack smiles up at him, trying to apologize for his blabbermouth.  
  
“Our friendships ’s always been so easy, ya know… Ever since we started hanging out… I never want us to change.” Jack continues softly. He’s almost falling back asleep.  
  
Mark stops and stares at him for a while. He opens his mouth a few times, but doesn’t actually say anything. Then he leans down a bit, and Jack is already tilting his head up, ready to accept a kiss. But Mark stops halfway down and brings his right hand up to mess with Jack’s short hair.  
  
“Okay then, Jack. If that’s what you _think_ you want…” Mark pokes him a little harder on the ribs, that characteristic fire burning in his eye. “Now budge over. I gotta sleep now, early flight tomorrow.”

 

 

 

 

  
The long flight back home is surreal. Jack’s body is aching everywhere and he finally feels tired. He’s reminded of the times he survived on caffeine and adrenaline alone during his college years: the crash feels pretty much exactly the same.  
  
There’s a kind of sweet sadness about the whole thing, too. It was the best weekend ever, and now it’s over.  
  
He can’t just go to dinner with his online friends every day anymore, he can’t turn around and talk to people about his experiences with YouTube face to face, he’s back to being the lonely Irish boy he always has been.  
  
Saying goodbye to Mark was hard.  
  
They had to do it inside the elevator, of all places. Jack had to leave for his flight, but Mark still had a couple of hours before he had to go. So there they were, standing side by side in the little metal box, too small to contain all the words Jack felt like he needed to say.   
  
_Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being so nice to me_.   
  
It all went unsaid, because there in the elevator with them stood a random guy. Just another hotel guest that had nothing to do with them.   
  
Suddenly they were at Mark’s floor and Jack was struck dumb. Mark had this fire of challenge in his eyes as he said goodbye to Jack, daring him to make a move. But Jack chickened out. He gave Mark a quick hug and a pat on the back.  
  
“It was nice meeting you, man.” And Mark was getting off the elevator.  
  
Just before the doors started closing Mark smirked at him like he knew something no one else did, “Bye, Jack. Talk to you on Skype later.” He said, loaded with meaning.  
  
And that was it.  
  
Jack was alone again.  
  
His life got so crazy after he started this YouTube thing. Now he has millions of subscribers, real life friendships with people he looks up to, and this weird sex-thing with Markiplier of all people. And yet he’s still just as much of a lonely Irish boy as when he first started.   
  
What even is his life anymore?

 

 

 

 

  
Months pass, and Jack hits another subscriber milestone, and through all of this Marks stays the same. He’s always such a cool dude. Jack really feels like he can talk to Mark about stuff, from game trivia to his concerns about YouTube, Mark is always there to listen and share his opinions.  
  
And even with stupid stuff! Mark keeps sending him weird pictures of his own face (used on Mark’s video’s thumbnails) for Jack to quality test, the weirder the better. Or that day when Jack was feeling sad and Mark just spammed his twitter DM’s with random dog facts and stupid memes until Jack felt better.  
  
Their collabs are still just as much fun as they were in the first few episodes. It’s amazing how much chemistry they have when recording. All the GMod maps with Mark, Bob, and Wade just feel like hanging out with friends, not like a job at all. and for someone like Jack, who doesn’t really have any close local friends to play games with, it is even more of a big deal.  
  
Yeah, Mark keeps up that _other aspect_ of their friendship too. It’s still just as mind-blowing, maybe even more so, because now it’s not just an untouchable fantasy: Jack knows what it feels like in real life, he knows what Mark is capable of doing to him, he remembers exactly how amazing having sex with Mark actually is like. Now it’s not a fantasy anymore, it’s just teasing. Jack knows that the next time they meet they are going to have incredible sex again; it’s just a matter of when.  
  
So of course, once Wade starts talking about Indypopcon and how awesome, and chill, and small scale, and intimate it is, Jack just has to plan out another trip to America.

 

 

 

 

  
Indypopcon goes beyond all kinds of expectations for many reasons. What was supposed to be a small scale convention turns into 8 hours of signing with no lunch breaks and three thousand people watching Jack’s first ever panel. It feels so much bigger than PAX, and just to think that it’s been just a few months since that…  
  
The crowds just make Jack more energized. There’s just something about the fact that all of these are individual people, with individual personalities and life stories, that all decided that they wanted to wait hours in line just to get a little bit of time with _Jack_ of all people. It’s _insane_.  
  
It hits Jack the hardest just before the Markiplier and Friends panel. the sheer amount of seats laid out was already overwhelming, but then people started coming in, and they kept coming in, and then there were no more seats left and then people started sitting on the _floor_.  
  
Mark finds him tucked into a corner, shaking.  
  
“You ready for this?” And how can Mark be so ready and calm?  
  
Jack can only answer him with a breathless laugh that is at least 60% disbelief and 40% hysterical.  
  
Mark looks around to check if they’re alone and then steps closer to Jack, crowding him up against the wall. Jack probably should feel uncomfortable or threatened, but really, Mark is more of a protective wall against the pressure of the thousands of people outside this little bubble of theirs. He let’s his head drop against Mark’s chest, breathing in the scent of his cologne and washing detergent.  
  
“Is this the part where you tell me to imagine everyone in their underwear?”  
  
Mark chuckles silently and Jack can feel Mark’s breath rustling his hair slightly.  
  
“I mean, you can always picture me naked if you want, but I don’t see how it would help in this situation.”  
  
Jack punches Mark lightly on the arm without even raising his head. Mark just laughs at him again. “Unhelpful bastard… definitely not the time for this bullshit...” Jack mumbles, trying not to giggle.  
  
“Yeah, we can do that bullshit later, you just have to survive the panel.”  
  
Jack lifts his head and raises a single unimpressed eyebrow up to Mark, who just keeps looking at him with that irritating little smirk.  
  
“You suck.”  
  
“I could… after the panel.”   
  
And that’s what breaks Jack, he just can’t take that sentence with Mark’s perfectly neutral face.  
  
“Fine!” Jack sighs, “You win.”  
  
Mark doesn’t move anywhere, Jack keeps expecting him to either lean down for a kiss or to just step away, but he does neither. Jack licks his lips, considering his options, and even though Mark follows the movement with his eyes he still makes no moves. Heart pounding Jack chickens out, yet again, and pushes Mark away gently. Mark goes with the movement and steps back but he still looks like he’s laughing at Jack.  
  
Well, whatever! Jack’s going to survive the panel and show him.

 

 

 

 

  
The panel is stupidly fun and not nearly as awkward as Jack feared it would be. The buzz of energy lasts long after the panel and the signing afterwards. Even when everyone else start to get tired Jack just wants to keep going and have more fun. And really, that’s the whole theme for the weekend. Jack just can’t get enough of all the positive energy. He wants every chance to hang out with Mark’s friends, all the dinners and breakfasts and that epic 4-way air hockey match… It’s so much fun. It’s the second time he’s met these people face to face, and yet if feels like Jack’s known them forever.  
  
The weekend also just so happens to fall on Mark’s birthday.  
  
Of course they all go out for dinner together. He feels a little bad for Bob and Mandy, spending their anniversary in a convention can’t be that romantic. But overall they all have a great time, and yeah, maybe he follows Mark back to his room for a little celebration of their own, but no one really needs to know about that.   
  
“I don’t know why this is so addictive,” Jack ponders aloud between gasps, slowly sinking back down onto Mark where he lays beautiful and lazy, almost melting on the hotel bed. “I just want to keep doing this over and over.”  
  
Mark just moans softly from under him. He raises a hand to grasp at Jack’s hips, but Jack pushes it away easily. Mark is gorgeous like this, and Jack just wants to ruin him.  
  
“Jack…” Mark whines, but makes no move to grab at him again. He’s not even thrusting his hips up against Jack’s anymore.  
  
“Tired already?” Jack teases, speeding up the pace of his movements for a few seconds, just to hear Mark’s moans change volume. “I’m not done with ya yet.” Jack runs his nails across Mark’s chest and marvels at the red lines blooming across gorgeous tan skin. “God, you’re so addictive. Stop that.”  
  
Mark smirks up at him but keeps on being a good birthday boy and enjoying his present until Jack is satisfied.

 

 

 

 

  
Jack is only slightly ashamed of trying his hardest to look cute.   
  
The thing is: Mark hasn’t been initiating stuff nearly as much as he did last time they were together. It’s probably because he’s been pretty tired throughout the weekend, but Jack can’t help but think of the expression _playing hard to get_ every time Jack leans close for a kiss and Mark doesn’t close the gap between them.  
  
But initiating stuff has never really been Jack’s style. It’s easier and way more fun to have Mark push him around and grab at him. If Mark isn’t going to do that out of his own volition, then Jack just has to convince him.  
  
Jack licks his own lips, sits obnoxiously close to Mark during meals, whispers innocuous stuff without really needing to, just because he knows Mark’s ears are sensitive. It’s pretty obvious Mark knows what he’s doing, but still he holds himself back.  
  
It’s like a game.  
  
It’s infuriating.  
  
Jack’s determined to win.  
  
Mark is spread across the bed doing god knows what on his phone, and looking absolutely delectable. Jack is starting to really wish for a round two of some sort, but cuddling up next to Mark and dropping kisses along the man’s neck doesn’t get him anywhere. He tries running his foot along Marks calves, but that doesn’t have any effect either.  
  
Pouting, Jack slips out of bed with an over exaggerated sigh. Mark most definitely notices that, but not enough to drop his phone. Looking around the room Jack considers just getting dressed and going back to his own hotel room unsatisfied, but Mark’s discarded boxer briefs spark an idea.  
  
Jack picks up Mark’s bright red underwear and giggles to himself. Of _course_ Mark uses ridiculously flashy underwear. Jack strategically turns his back to the bed and bends over to put on the discarded underwear. If he blushes a little from actively trying to give Mark a nice view, then at least he hopes Mark appreciates the effort.  
  
“What are you doing?” Mark asks cautiously from the bed.  
  
Jack looks over his shoulder, still trying to show off. “D’you like it?”  
  
“Uhm…” Mark is still peering from over his phone’s screen, but now Jack is sure he’s got the man’s attention.  
  
Jack saunters over to the bed swaying his hips just a little bit.  
  
“Hurr duurr, I’m Markipluuur, and I have wide hips and a great ass.” Jack stops right in front of Mark’s face, near the headboard. Mark’s eyes are crotch level in this position. Jack grabs at the elastic on the slightly too big boxer briefs and tugs at it, releasing it in a sharp snap.  
  
The effect is instant. Mark tosses his phone somewhere on the bed and encircles Jack’s hips with one of his arms, tugging him even closer to the bed and almost making him lose balance. Jack rests his right knee on the bed for more support while Mark sits up a bit more, pressing a kiss right under Jack’s belly button.  
  
“You think you’re really cute, don’t you?”  
  
“...Yeah.” No point in lying.  
  
Mark pulls at Jack’s hips harder until he has no choice but to straddle Mark’s chest on top of the bed. Jack runs his fingers through Mark’s hair and tries tugging at the strands. “I kinda miss your long hair, ya know.”  
  
Mark runs one of his hands up Jack’s thighs and grabs a handful of his ass with the other.  
  
“I think I get it. I like that you’re letting your hair grow out a bit, more for me to grab onto…” Mark keeps his hands in place, not making any move to escalate things aside from an occasional squeeze or two.   
  
Jack sighs in frustration.  
  
“Alright… What do you say  we do it one more time before I go back to my room?” Mark just had to make him say it.  
  
“Oh, Jack. If you wanted it that bad, you just had to ask.” That smug little infuriating smirk and that challenge in Mark’s eyes are going to be the death of him.

 

 

 

 

  
It’s just a little scary how much Mark’s been running through his head lately.   
  
It doesn’t take him any time at all to start planning his return to the US. PAX Prime is just around the corner and Jack is not even off his plane yet, and he’s already daydreaming of all the possibilities another convention will bring him.  
  
Being back in Ireland is great, don’t get him wrong. He loves his own house and his own people, and that one cashier at the grocery store who knows him by name, the peace and quiet, the relative privacy. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.  
  
It’s just that being out there, in these spaces dedicated specifically for people who like the same stuff as him, makes Jack feel less like that lonely Irish boy, and more like a collection of everyone’s energy and excitement. He still feels like himself, just turned up to eleven.  
  
That little taste of contact with his friends just makes him want to meet them again and again. And of course, Mark is the one that pops into mind.  
  
They’re planning another collab already, nothing really cemented yet, but they’re working out their schedule for the next couple of weeks. It seems like ages since they’ve seen each other.  
  
It’s still soon enough after Indypopcon for there to be gifs and pictures of the convention all around his main tag. Well, convention stuff along with _other things_.  
  
Jack is aware of the people online who keep pairing them up, and of course he dismisses the entire thing. He’s been on the internet long enough to know that people will ship anything they want anyway, there’s no point in going after them. But still, it kind of hits him when he starts seeing pictures of himself looking longingly at Mark, video excerpts where he sounds so fond talking about Mark’s friendship. It’s all true.  
  
He’s not stupid. He’s not going to confuse their sexual chemistry with love or anything like that. But he’s gotta admit he’s been getting really attached to their friendship, and he can’t get enough of the late night sex either.  
  
Jack know it’s not love. But what if Mark starts misinterpreting things just like those people in the fandom are?  
  
Mark looks gorgeous in the image from his webcam. All bright and happy and soft. Jack caught him online just after finishing his recordings for the day, now they’re talking to each other while Mark gets started on editing the new footage and Jack figures out thumbnails.  
  
“Can’t believe we’re already planning another collab… Careful there, Jackaboy, I’m starting to wonder if you’re getting too attached to me.”  
  
Of course Mark just has to hit him exactly with the thing that’s been troubling him lately.  
  
“Well, I’m not.” Jack snaps back at him, and immediately flinches at his own voice. He’s been known to lash out when he’s scared.  
  
“Uhm, getting a little defensive there, Jack. Is there something you want to tell me?”  
  
“It’s all bullshit, ok, what those people are saying.”  
  
“Those people?”  
  
“The septiplier people.” Jack shakes his head in frustration, “I don’t have feelings for you.”  
  
Mark is strangely silent for a few second, but then answers with a simple “Alright, then.”  
  
“I’m serious. I don’t have feelings for you, and I never will.” Jack tries not to look at the window where Mark’s webcam footage is showing. “I know what I signed up for when we started doing… whatever the hell it is that we’re doing. You don’t have to wonder anything, I’m not going to fall in love with you like that.”   
  
The thing is: Jack is really scared.  
  
Jack _knows_ he’s getting too involved in this thing with Mark. He _knows_ it could all go downhill from here. And it terrifies him.  
  
Because he likes what he has with Mark, and he likes their easy friendship, and Jack would much rather never have sex in his life ever again than to risk losing Mark’s friendship. And he knows that if he steps over the unspoken boundaries of this thing they’ve got going on… If Mark gets it into his head that Jack has somehow fallen for him (he _hasn’t_ )... It’s all going to be over.  
  
Jack can’t bear the thought of having a strained, cautious, awkward relationship with Mark. Thank god he’s not actually in love with him. But while he still can dispel any weird ideas Mark’s having, he just needs to make himself as clear as possible.  
  
“We’ve got ‘ta tone it down a little bit.” Jack doesn’t really specify what, but he’s pretty sure Mark knows.  
  
“Jack, we argue like a married couple on our collabs, we talk to each other constantly through Skype, we have as much sex as we physically can without falling over and dying of exhaustion every time we see each other in person, and we cyber whenever we’re apart. By all means, we’re basically a long distance couple already.” Jack doesn’t have the guts to look at Mark’s face-cam, but he sounds like he’s explaining something to a little child.  
  
“Well, we’re not. I promise you, we won’t _ever_ be.” Is it too late to convince Mark not to run away screaming? “That’s exactly why we need to tone it down.”   
  
Mark just snorts, he’s laughing at Jack again. “Sure.”  
  
“Yeah… and besides, I’ve been, uh- chatting up this girl online and ah… it’s probably a little awkward to have every one thinkin’ I’m dating some dude when I’m tryin’ to charm her.” Jack shuts his eyes tightly and prays for Mark not to see through his lies. Sure he’s talked with this one girl online lately. She’s done some pretty cool fanart and sounded like a nice person, but if he’s being honest with himself, Jack hasn’t really been looking for a relationship since he started messing around with Mark. He just got too comfortable getting both his need for platonic and sexual affection without the unnecessary romance stuff.  
  
“Huh, and how’s that working out for you?” Mark still doesn’t sound like he believes a single word Jack is saying.  
  
“Good. Yeah… pretty good. I mean… It’s nothing serious or anything yet, but, I mean, I can maybe see it working out eventually.” Jack knows he’s bright red, and the words just burn his throat as he speaks.  
  
“Alright then, good for you, I guess.” Mark chuckles again, and Jack is too afraid to analyze it.  
  
“Hey, uh, Mark, I’m gonna go now. I still have to work on editing some stuff…” It sounds like an awful excuse, but he’d do anything to escape this conversation.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ll talk to the guys about that collab. Talk to you tomorrow?”  
  
“Yeah, tomorrow is fine.”   
  
Jack speeds through saying goodbye, desperate to escape Mark’s judgement and the impending doom of their friendship, and is left looking at this terrible mess of a thumbnail he’s not even sure how to fix.  
  
He feels absolutely awful.  
  
First he lashed out at Mark for no reason, and then he lied right to his face. He feels so guilty he could cry.  
  
Jack pushes his computer chair back covers his face with his hands and just screams a bit, in complete frustration with himself. He tugs at his own hair for a bit, but when his little pity party starts looking a bit too ridiculous even for him, Jack gets up from his chair and decides to make himself a cup of coffee. He still needs to finish up those thumbnails and he’s gonna need all the coffee he can get.

 

 

 

 

  
She calls him Sean.  
  
It shouldn’t sound as weird as it does, but it definitely is constantly at the back of Jack’s mind every time they talk. The name reminds him of work e-mails or family gatherings, and the contrast itself is a little too much for him. There’s this unspoken rule that his internet friendships should always refer to him as Jack. But this isn’t supposed to be a friendship in the first place, is it?  
  
Jack’s not sure what to call it exactly. They talk about all kinds of stuff, cool movies and concept art, and video-game graphics, and web-comics. It sounds a lot like his friendships most of the time, except for the moments when Jack tries flirting.  
  
She’s a very pretty girl, soft hair, pretty smile, the whole package, and Jack is not lying when he tells her exactly that. By all means she’s his type through and through: silly and nerdy and a bit awkward, with comfy clothes and messy hair. Jack looks at her through her webcam’s grainy image and thinks: _she’s so soft_. And then she tells him this story from her childhood when she dodged a pebble while riding a bike and smacked face first into her neighbor’s parked car, and she snorts a little when she laughs and that in turn makes Jack laugh too.  
  
By all means this should work out between them.  
  
There’s just _something_ missing.  
  
She makes Jack laugh, they have a load of things they can talk about, she’s really cute, but that’s it. Jack tells her she’s pretty, and he _means_ it, but that’s about the extent of it. Jack wouldn’t mind kissing her, but that doesn’t mean he actually feels a need to kiss her.  
  
Jack is pretty sure she notices this too.  
  
They’re trying to have a conversation, but Jack’s phone keeps buzzing where it’s resting by his computer mouse. Jack doesn’t even try to fight his attention span and ends up glancing right every so often.   
  
“You can take that if you need to, Sean, I don’t mind.” Of course she notices it.  
  
“Huh?” Her voice startles Jack out of yet another glance to his screen.  
  
“You should check it.”  
  
And Jack doesn’t need another excuse. He unlocks his phone to find a string of messages from Mark. The man apparently had a very dramatic trip to the supermarket involving a surprisingly squishy avocado and a soccer mom with judgemental eyes. Jack involuntarily lets out a giggle and rolls his eyes. Why do these things only happen to Mark? Jack is already halfway through typing a response and asking for the full story when he remembers he’s still in a skype call with someone.  
  
“Oh, sorry about that. It’s just, uh- Mark is having an adventure in the supermarket.” Jack shifts on his chair a bit. He feels bad for being so distracted.  
  
“Another Mark-Adventure? Can’t wait to hear about it, they’re always so fun.” The worst part is that she actually sounds genuine.  
  
It’s not the first time something like this happens. They’re just talking like normal and then the subject suddenly shifts to Mark, and then Jack spends 20 minutes recounting a meme war he had with Mark over his twitter DM’s, or when Mark got an email from the developer of a porn game that wanted him to voice one of the characters, or when Mark played air hockey with such gusto he almost shot off Mandy’s shoulder with a stray puck.  
  
“Uh, sorry about that, what were we talking about anyway?”  
  
“It’s fine, I need to go in like, 15 minutes anyway…”  
  
Jack feels like a douchebag. After the whole semi-argument he had with Mark, Jack decided to give this girl a chance. Something inside him is very disappointed that he probably only decided to go through with it just so he could say he didn’t lie to Mark. But she is genuinely nice and Jack could see them being a cute couple sometime in the future. It’s just that the feeling isn’t there yet for him, maybe if he tried a little harder they could actually…  
  
“Hey, we should go on a proper date. Once we’re in the same country, I mean. Like a dinner or-”  
  
“Sean,” She interrupts him, “Are you sure you want to go on a date with _me_?” she stresses that word pointedly for some reason.  
  
Jack looks away from his screen, a little embarrassed, he doesn’t notice when his gaze falls on his phone again.   
  
“Yeah, I mean, you’re fun, and nice…”  
  
“Yeah, I think you’re fun and nice too. I just don’t think you’re doing this for the right reason. It doesn’t have to be a date.”  
  
Jack guiltily looks back at his screen. She doesn’t seem offended, and just looks at him with this patient smile on her face. Her hair is starting to fall out of the bun she put it on earlier in the call. Jack tries thinking about brushing the hair off her face and tucking it behind her ears, or about tugging her hair out of her bun and running his fingers through the soft strands while kissing her, but the thought goes nowhere.  
  
His phone buzzes again. Definitely Mark again.   
  
“I really like you, Signe.” and Jack means it.   
  
“I really like you too, Sean.” Jack wishes he could be the guy for her, he really does. “Okay, so I really have to go now,” She perks up again, pushing her long hair off her face and re tying her hair. “Go talk to Mark, and then you can tell me what happened when we talk again.”  
  
Jack can hear the underlying meaning in her words and for an instant he considers denying everything, explaining why she’s wrong about the nature of his relationship with Mark. But that would take way longer than the few minutes she has before she needs to leave. God knows this thing he has with Mark is complicated.  
  
So Jack settles for a simple: “Okay, I will. See you later.”  
  
After she disconnects Jack sits back on his chair in a slump, he glances at his phone, but is too emotionally exhausted to even consider Mark. With a sigh and a quick glance to the clock on his computer screen, Jack decides on an early dinner. For a second Jack thinks of the advantages of having a sad piece of toast to go with the rejection he just got, but ultimately decides to spend some time actually making a bowl of pasta he can drown his feelings into.

 

 

 

 

  
Jack is two forkfuls down his pasta when he gets another message from Mark.  
  
_“skype rn?”  
  
“having dinner hmu in 30” _ Jack answers.  
  
It’s so bad that Jack is anticipating Mark’s call. He forces himself to finish his pasta at a reasonable pace and even takes the time to do the dishes afterwards. It’s still early, but he figures that lounging in his bed scrolling through Twitter and Tumblr on his Ipad should buy him enough time to actually go to sleep in a normal-ish time, specially if Mark is calling him later.  
  
Jack has just enough time to reblog a couple of gifs from the JSE Tumblr tag before he’s on yet another Skype call with Mark.  
  
“You look grumpy.” Is the first thing Mark tells him.  
  
“Yeah, fuck you too.” Jack says, not really pouting, but close.  
  
Mark just laughs at him, “Bad day?”  
  
“Just a lot of shit going through my mind now.” Jack snuggles up against his pillow barely remembering to balance his Ipad somewhere on the bed. He’s probably not even in frame, but he doesn’t really give a fuck.  
  
“Wanna talk about it?” And fuck Mark and his understanding voice and his soft brown eyes.  
  
“I really, really, really don’t.” It irks Jack so much that he can talk about virtually everything with Mark, everything but the one thing that is messing him up so bad.  
  
“Okay, I’ll just distract you.”  
  
Jack honestly thinks Mark is about to have Skype sex with him again, and for that small moment, he is completely okay with it. Jack starts considering where to rest his Ipad for a better view and tries to remember if he is wearing nice underwear today. But then Mark pulls a Mark yet again, and surprises Jack.  
  
“I accidentally fingered an avocado in public today.” Mark says with a straight face.  
  
“You _what_?”and really, Jack should be used to this by now.  
  
“My adventure at the supermarket.” Mark answers as if that explains everything.  
  
“Okay, I’m invested now. How the fuck do you accidentally finger an avocado in public?”  
  
“I was trying to choose an avocado on the fruit stand. So Naturally I try to squeeze it a little to see if it’s ripe. I don’t know if this particular one was incredibly ripe or if I just got distracted and squeezed too hard… but it was just so squishy…”  
  
“Why am I even surprised? of course this shit would happen to you.”  
  
“No, but it gets worse-”  
  
“Oh god, of course it gets worse.”  
  
“So like, now there’s a little finger dent in the avocado, and I don’t know why I got so fixated on it, but I did, ‘cause it was so _squishy!”  
  
_ “I don’t like where this is going…”  
  
“So I just…poke it. Just to test it.” Mark seems to get more and more into his story and starts to mimic his actions for the camera. “And somehow I just keep poking it, and I’m wondering, ‘Hey can I actually touch the pit if I keep going?’ and so I keep going”  
  
“Mark, why?”  
  
“I don’t know? But then I look up, and there’s this woman looking straight at me-”  
  
“Oh god-”  
  
“With this _horrified_ expression on her face.”  
  
“Oh no… what did you do?”  
  
“So I’m thinking: I can’t just drop this back and run. She’ll probably just call security if I did. And I can’t put it in my cart either, she’ll think I’m weird-”  
  
“You are weird, you fucking lunatic that fingers avocadoes.”  
  
“ _So,_ ” Mark says a little louder, probably to drown out Jack’s name calling, “I just… I just keep holding it, and I just wheel my way away from her.”  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me, you just walked off holding the avocado?” Jack is starting to sound a little shrieky, but it’s either that of laughing his lungs out.  
  
“Uh… yeah…”  
  
And Jack can’t hold himself back anymore. He laughs so hard his abs hurt.   
  
“That’s better. You look cute when you’re grumpy, but you’re cuter when you’re laughing.” That is exactly the wrong time to flirt, Jack looks like a mess from laughing too hard.  
  
“Shut up, you avocado molester.”  
  
“Believe me, I’d much rather be fingering a Jack, but there are things called continents, and…”  
  
“Oh god, are you seriously trying to chat me up now?” Jack stared up at his Ipad, Mark just looked smug and cocky.  
  
“Are you going to stop me?”  
  
And fuck Mark anyway, that ridiculous, charming, socially awkward, flirt monster of a man. Jack should stop him, he really should. Jack should also try harder at getting a girlfriend. He should by all means try to forget Mark as soon and as efficiently as possible.  
  
“Mark…” Jack starts.  
  
“You do know that you can stop me at any time, right? Just tell me to cut it out and I’ll never try anything again.”   
  
Jack knows that. Jack is painfully aware of that. Jack stays silent.  
  
“Is this you giving me permission to continue?” Jack hides his face in his pillow again and nods, still silent.  
  
“Weren’t you trying something with a girl lately, Jack? You sure that’s ok?” Jack raises his head just enough to glare at Mark on his screen, but softens once he can see how uncertain Mark looks.  
  
Jack tries to keep his glare going, but he can feel his cheeks getting hotter and he doesn’t need to look to know he must be bright red now. “Leave her out of this, Mark. I don’t think it’s gonna work out.” At Jack’s confession Mark’s shoulders drop, all this tension in his body just vanishes. Jack didn’t even notice it was there until it was gone.  
  
“Is that why you were grumpy?”  
  
“Kinda, yeah.” And the flirty mood is gone.  
  
Jack hears Mark let out a sigh, but he buries his face deeper still on the pillow, too afraid to find any traces of ‘ _I told you so_ ’ in Mark’s expression.  
  
“It’s her loss anyway.” Mark says, “You’re a good catch, Jack.”  
  
“How does that saying go anyway? One man’s junk is another man’s treasure?” Jack replies with no enthusiasm at all. Sure there were thousands of girls desperate to have a guy who’s hooked into his FWB.  
  
“Oh, you’ve got no idea.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I’m just saying, I’d be quite happy to treasure your junk.”   
  
At that reply Jack rises from his hiding place once more, only to see Mark wink at him from the screen. “Oh god, you are the fuckin’ worst. How do you come up with this shit? Just let me mope in peace for fuck’s sake.” No use complaining, Jack is grinning again.  
  
“I told you: You look much cuter when you laugh. My intentions aren’t pure at all.”  
  
“Oh, that part I can believe. You dirty little shit.” Jack says, shaking his head in mock disapproval.  
  
“I know for a fact that you like me dirty. In fact, you wanted me to be dirty like 5 minutes ago.” Mark still holds onto that smug smile. “Offer still stands, by the way, if you need the distraction.”  
  
Jack bites his lower lip and considers his options. He still needs to figure this shit out properly, but after that rejection, Jack needs to feel desired again, and he’s damn sure Mark can accomplish that.  
  
“And how exactly do you plan on distracting me?”  
  
So maybe it isn’t the healthiest option out there. And maybe Jack ends up sucking on his own fingers, humping down his bed, and making an absolute mess of his duvet for Mark’s viewing pleasure. But god does it feel nice to see Mark lose it because of him.

 

 

 

 

  
Jack isn’t sure what changed, but something most definitely did. Maybe he lost any sense of shame he had left, maybe Mark was being extra-irresistible lately, or maybe they both just decided not to give a single fuck anymore and take this _thing_ between them wherever it took them.  
  
They record more stuff together, and it is visible to anyone who watches their videos: It goes downhill on the first minutes of their second attempt at The Forest. Mark somehow gets into the subject of his veiny arms and then he uses _that voice_ , and Jack knows he is doing that on purpose, and he has no doubt that if he so desires they would stop the recording right then and there to have their own fun. But he resists. _Barely._ He is still very flustered and awkward squirming in his chair, and he can tell Mark is enjoying it immensely.   
  
He should edit that part out.  
  
He doesn’t.  
  
People would read into that moment however they wanted to regardless of whether it was real or not, the fact that it is an intimate little peek into his Mark’s dynamic is none of their concern anyway. In any case, the choice of leaving that part in is liberating in a way Jack never even knew he could enjoy. It’s almost exhibitionism.  
  
The boost of pride and possessiveness of seeing Mark’s inclusion of the clip on his own version doesn’t mean anything too profound, Jack is sure of it.  
  
It’s certainly a shift into something different. People start going quite heavy handed on the whole septiplier thing, and to be honest, Jack doesn’t really mind it as much as he thinks he should. Jack is pretty aware of how he is perceived and what makes people like his videos. It’s just another JackSepticEye thing: a bromance with Markiplier. People think it’s funny, or endearing, or whatever they want to think, and Jack can be as open and cheeky as he wants to be without lying or toning down his natural bantering with his friend.  
  
They talk about BroJobs and buttholes on a Rocket League video, and Jack doesn’t give a fuck.  
  
People start calling them an old-married couple, and Jack just goes with it.  
  
Their friends tease them about it and Jack can’t find it in himself to dodge their jokes.  
  
He is happier than he ever was, and he thinks nothing of it.  
  
Once the time for PAX Prime comes around Jack is more confident than ever. He’s excited to meet more of his subscribers, to finally hang out with Felix in person, to meet lots of youtubers, to get some new video game merch, to try learning how to suck off Mark properly without gagging, to get some quality time with his online friends, and just to experience everything life had given him.  
  
“I thought you guys were just playing it up for the camera, but you really are attached at the hip.” One of Mark’s subscribers stops them for a picture and a quick chat.  
  
“Septiplier ‘n shit,” Mark mumbles, “Nah, but I really like this little shit. Were pretty good friends.” and he grabs Jack’s shoulder and shoves him playfully. “But we’re just friends. Nothing else.”  
  
Jack lets himself be pushed around and ignores the sharp sting of _something_ in his chest. He rests his hand between Mark’s shoulder blades where he knows he’s left bright red nail marks when they met in private before leaving to meet the others for breakfast. “Yeah, we’re just friends.”  
  
Mark can’t keep his hands to himself, not even during the panel with Ken and Felix, and they touch hands, and push each other around, and knock shoulders together to the sound of the audience’s cheers.  
  
“Why don’t you two just fuck already?” Felix teases.   
  
Jack bites his tongue against the urge of replying with a simple “And who’s to say we didn’t?” Hopefully the crowd is too distracted by the joke to pay attention to him at all. He settles for sharing a meaningful look with Mark, something secret just for the two of them even while they’re being watched by thousands of people, just like their relationship, in so many ways.  
  
Mark keeps denying everything, every person who comments on how they like their collabs, or how they’re subscribed to the both of them, or how cute they are together. No matter the intention behind the statements they all get the same standard answer from Mark: “Just friends.”  
  
Jack doesn’t know why it unnerves him, it just does. His teeth ache with the need to bite down on something (someone?) but he doesn’t dare stop his casual way of acting around Mark. This is how they work together, with the play fighting and the touches and the sex jokes, and now that Jack has permitted himself to act on it, he’s not going to stop because they have an audience. He just wants to show affection for his friend without being judged for it.

 

 

 

 

  
Mark has him pressed against the wall of his hotel room, too desperate to take the last couple of steps to reach the bed. He is kissing Jack like he means it, like he can’t get enough. Mark runs his right hand through Jack’s hair while his left is lifting Jack’s shirt, running his fingers lightly on the space between Jack’s belly button and the waistline of his jeans where he knows it will make Jack’s abdomen tense reflexively.  
  
Jack is not passive during the kiss. He had taken no time to get Mark’s shirt off of him, and now he loops an arm around Mark’s shoulders to bring him down closer and tighter into the kiss, his other hand finds its way inside Mark’s back pocket and unashamedly cops a feel. Pressed up tight like this Jack can feel that Mark is getting hard, and it is just so fucking _good._  
  
Jack has always liked making out with his past girlfriends and reaching down to more private places to find he’s had an effect on them. Somehow, feeling Mark hardening under his touch is even better. It’s a little embarrassing, but Jack figures it’s probably just a power thing. Mark is hard because of _him_ , it is a tangible very obvious fact, Mark likes to be touched by _him_. It is visible, it is a bulge, it is a growing pressure and warmth where it is rubbing against Jack’s thigh, if anyone walked in on them right now there would be no way for Mark to hide it: Jack makes him feel good.  
  
There’s no way for Mark to hide it.  
  
Jack breaks the kiss and rests his head back against the wall, the plain white ceiling would stare back down at him judgingly if it could, or at least Jack thinks it should. It is weird for him to be so possessive, and the worst part is that he knows he’s being unreasonable. It’s not like Mark could just tell everyone who came up to have something signed: “Jack is my good friend that I fuck silly every time we’re at the same general location for more than a few hours, oh, and we’ve also been having Skype-sex for months now.”   
  
Mark licks his way down Jack’s neck, and lets go of Jack’s hair to use both hands to push Jack’s shirt up. Jack pushes Mark away to get the T-shirt off properly. He is still mildly pissed off. Once Jack is free of his shirt he doesn’t give Mark time to stop and ogle him, he tugs the American back in by his belt loops and bites at his lower lip a bit harsher than the man expected, if his small surprised whimper is anything to go by.  
  
When Mark kisses him a bit harder in retaliation Jack pushes him off again. Getting his hands on Mark’s zipper and going about taking his pants off Jack mumbles more to himself than to anyone in particular “I just don’t fucking understand what you want.”  
  
Apparently Jack didn’t say it quietly enough, because Mark leans close again ruining Jack’s attempt of undressing him in favor of pressing their hips together and grinding down, he traces Jack’s earlobe with his tongue and whispers his response, “I want _you_. Is that too much to ask?”  
  
“You’ve got me.” Jack says, and the frustration in his voice is apparent.   
  
“Do I really?”  
  
“You’ve got me.” Jack repeats a little more forcefully this time.  
  
Mark just shakes his head at him, clearly unconvinced. And _fuck this_ , Jack’s been waiting all day for Mark to finally acknowledge him, all that “Just Friends” bullshit is driving him up the wall, and Jack has had enough. He pushes Mark back in the vague direction of the bed and the man stumbles back, looking shocked, but with that annoying pleased little smirk that Jack wants to kiss right off him. Jack manhandles him back until Mark nearly topples onto the bed behind him. Once he is safely sat by the edge of the bed Jack goes back to his original plan of Taking Mark’s jeans off and completely ignores Mark’s attempts to pull him up for a kiss.  
  
If Jack takes out his frustration by pushing past his gag reflex and effectively giving himself a sore throat, that is his problem and his problem alone. The taste on the back of his tongue is barely enough to confirm the fact that Mark is as into this as he is, and it tastes of victory in a way.

 

 

 

 

  
Despite Jack’s anxiety the convention ends up being his favorite one so far: there were just too many fun moments through their panels, signings and get-togethers for Jack to let his sudden possessiveness over Mark ruin his experience. Besides, Jack didn’t want these strange feelings to put any strain on his and Mark’s relationship.  
  
Jack wakes up on his last day on the hotel buck ass naked with a numb arm and a mouthful of black hair. A little awkward and uncomfortable, but Jack wouldn’t trade the experience of spooning Mark early in the morning for anything in the world.  
  
And really, the fact that the thought didn’t seem weird at all should’ve been Jack’s first warning.  
  
Jack tries shifting around a bit, looking for a way of easing the pressure on his arm without dislodging Mark, but he only succeeds in waking up the American. Mark turns around in his arms, and his beautiful pillow-creased face is almost worth the pins and needles shooting up Jack’s arm.  
  
“Good Morning, Jack.” Mark says in that scratchy deep voice he gets when he’s just woken up.  
  
“Ow.” Is Jack’s reply. Not all that convincing, since he can’t keep himself from smiling.  
  
Mark sits up just enough to get Jack’s arm from under him and lays back down. He grabs Jack’s hand and brings it up to his lips so he can drop kisses on every fingertip. Jack can’t really feel all the kisses on his numb tingly hand, and that is very disappointing, so he compensates by giving Mark a peck on his cheek.  
  
It’s peaceful for a good five minutes, Mark turns the hand holding into something of a hand massage, squeezing the palm of Jack’s hand and playing with his fingers. Jack enjoys the pampering for as long as he can take it and even takes the chance to snuggle up closer to Mark and rest his head on Mark’s shoulder occasionally dropping kisses on Mark’s collarbones.  
  
“Hairy Irishman.” Mark says as he runs his foot up Jack’s calves. Jack just giggles in response and tries to catch Mark’s feet with his own. They only accomplish tangling up the sheets and uncovering their legs up to the knees.   
  
The atmosphere is making everything seem softer and warmer. The morning light peeking from between the curtains barely illuminates the room, the peachy cream bed sheets make the best little cocoon for them to hide in. Once they give up on their little feet war Mark gives Jack a soft little kiss on the top of his head.  
  
“How about I call for room service and we have breakfast in bed today before we need to leave?”  
  
Jack is nodding more out of reflex than anything else, the words barely registering in the context of Mark’s soft morning voice. So when Mark is moving away untangling himself from their embrace Jack feels a little lost and very put out.   
  
Jack pouts. Mark is already getting up from the bed and fiddling with the hotel room’s phone, ready to call for breakfast.   
  
Jack doesn’t want the moment to end; he wants to keep being close to Mark. He doesn’t want Mark to leave yet, he actually doesn’t want Mark to leave _ever_.  
  
Mark looks over from his place in front of the phone, he is saying something about pancakes to the person on the other side of the line, and he smiles down at Jack. His brown eyes look warm in the morning light.  
  
Jack immediately drops his pouting and smiles back at Mark. He can feel this _tugging_ in his chest and a warmth that spreads out from within him.  
  
_No way._  
  
Jack is suddenly way more awake than he was a few seconds ago.  
  
“Oh.” Jack says softly, this one sound not even close to encompassing the full extent of his rushing thoughts.  
  
Realization hits him like a goddamn truck.  
  
Jack remembers the affection, and the instant chemistry, and the hours of skyping, and the sinking feeling for just considering the possibility of losing Mark. He remembers his failed attempt at dating, Signe’s words echoing in his memory. He remembers Mark being there for him every time he needed, and he remembers how much it bothered him to have Mark deny their involvement. He wonders if that’s how Mark felt every time Jack said he wasn’t actually in love with him.  
  
Jack comes out of his daze to find Mark sat next to him in bed again.  
  
“Oh.” He says again.  
  
“Did you finally figure it out?”  
  
“Oh god, I’m so sorry.”  
  
“You don’t have to be.”  
  
“ _I’m in love with you_.” Jack’s voice is nothing more than a whisper but holds so much meaning.    
  
“I know.” Mark tugs a still dazed Jack in for a quick close-mouthed kiss, “Well, actually, I’ve known for a while now, but it’s nice that you finally caught up.”  
  
“You were totally playing me this entire time, weren't you?” Jack kind of wants to hit him.  
  
“In my defense: I was just doing it so you could figure it out for yourself.”  
  
“But… how did you figure it out?” the confusion is still obvious in Jack's voice.  
  
“Because I know that nobody can resist my charm.” Mark smirks at him with that stupid smug face of his.  
  
“Mark for fuck’s sake don’t ruin this now, I’m kind of freaking out here!” Jack raises his voice.  
  
“Ok, it may also have something to do with the fact that I’m kinda very much in love with you too.” Mark’s smirk softens into his gentle grin, he looks giddy. “I’m not in love with your timing, though. If you’d realized it a little earlier we could’ve spent the whole weekend having emotional sex and figuring out how to manage a relationship, but you just had to procrastinate until the morning of the day we need to leave.” Mark shakes his head in fake disapproval.  
  
Jack is torn between the happiness of finding out Mark feels the same and the sudden crushing wave of anxiety over the fact that they both need to catch planes in a matter of hours. “We’re gonna have to spend breakfast figuring shit out, we can’t even have breakfast in bed in peace.”  
  
“It’s fine. I told you before: we’re practically in a long distance relationship already. We’ll figure it out. It won’t be the most relaxing of breakfasts, but to be honest, I think it’s gonna be worth the trouble”  
  
“Yeah, I think I agree.” And for the first time in that morning Jack moves closer and gives Mark a long heartfelt kiss. Of course the angle is weird and they still haven’t brushed their teeth, but regardless of that, Jack thinks it’s the most perfect kiss he ever had. “I love you.” Jack murmurs against Mark’s lips, and that feels perfect too.


End file.
